Alejandro Rodriguez was killed when he was 14 in 2003. His brother Gilberto Rodriguez now stands accused of murder. (Post Standard archives)

One of her seven sons was murdered on East Fayette Street in 2004 when he was 14.

"I know the pain that that mother is suffering because I went through the same thing," said Rosalinda Cruz, mother of murder defendant Gilberto Rodriguez and murder victim Alejandro Rodriguez. "It is horrible."

Gilberto Rodriguez is accused of fatally stabbing Pitts on Oct. 27 after a party at 550 S. Clinton Street. Police say Pitts stared at Rodriguez during the party. Rodriguez then followed Pitts outside and stabbed him to death, police said.

Rodriguez has been charged with second-degree murder. He was arrested less than two hours after the stabbing occurred, police said.

When she heard from police that morning that her son had been arrested, Cruz got dressed and went to the jail to get him.

There, they told her that he wouldn't be going anywhere.

"I was told no, that he was arrested, that he had killed somebody," she said in an interview in Spanish that has been translated. "I said, 'Are you sure? How can that be? ... It can't be that my son killed someone.'"

Cruz said she moved with several of her sons and husband at the time from Puerto Rico in 2000, when Gilberto Rodriguez was three.

Her son Alejandro Rodriguez was killed in 2004 by a DeWitt man who also injured three men in a shooting rampage, according to The Post-Standard's archives.

Gilberto Rodriguez, charged with murder. (Photo provided by family)

Robert McLee, who prosecutors at the time called a sociopath, was trying to kill another man but shot Alejandro Rodriguez instead. McLee was sentenced to 125 years to life in a state prison in 2005.

After her son was killed, Cruz became depressed and split up with her husband, she said.

Gilberto Rodriguez was a special needs student. Cruz wanted him to learn how to play the guitar but he dropped out of school.

Cruz said her son spent a lot of time with friends Cruz disapproved of. She said despite all she's been told that she can't believe her son would murder another person.

"I always taught him that he should not stain his hands with blood," Cruz said. "I'm a Christian woman."